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[Alexandr Korol]

Then some swans fly by and land somewhere on a lake. And you see all of this, and you come home and over a cup of tea you’re recalling what happened that morning, and you’re filled with inspiration, and you just write it down so you won’t forget how it all was. And while you’re writing it, are you thinking about what to name those bears or how to describe that lake? Are you thinking about how to do it? No — you’re just writing it in a rush, like you’re texting someone, just to tell them. Like, let’s say you sit down and want to write your mom: “Mom, listen, today I saw three bears. And after that, when I was heading home, swans flew in and landed on the lake. Remember, near that barrel?” And when you write something like that, you’re not thinking that the message you’re writing to your mom will be published worldwide and translated into every language, and become some book with a title. You’re not thinking that. You’re just sharing what happened, with emotion, from the heart — you’re describing the events. That’s how I write books. I simply write everything that’s happening. So it turns out that if I had to be sick for a week, then I was just sick for a week. If the next week I worked for two days and was busy, then I worked and was busy. I didn’t have deadlines, plans, or the mindset that I had to finish the book no matter what. No, that’s not how I wrote books. It was like — something happened again, like my friend swam across a lake and back in a minute, and I had never seen anything like that in my life, or he caught a ten-kilogram fish right in front of me, and I came home and wrote it down before bed. I was keeping a diary — that’s how it all started. I kept diaries, I liked it. It was something I needed, like I was writing to God, to the system, or to myself, or revealing my soul somehow. I needed it — so that if something happened in life today, if I got scared of something or, on the contrary, something inspired me incredibly, or suddenly I began to notice signs everywhere. Like yesterday there were signs: the Trojan War, the Trojan Horse. From all sides — imagine. First I was reading Wikipedia about the Trojan War and the horse, then I saw an illustration about it, then I turned on a show and they were talking about the Trojan Horse. In the show “What? Where? When?” from December, the end of 2024 — I turned it on and they were talking about the Trojan Horse there too. I thought, “What is this?” Just in passing. But imagine — it’s like God, the system, highlighted this for me five times in a day. And when that happens, naturally, I start writing about it. I just jot it down in my diary. So when I wrote books, I approached it with complete sincerity.